


Snow and Time Both Fly

by rangerkier



Category: BomBARDed (Podcast)
Genre: Bardvent, Gen, M/M, Snowball Fight, god I hope I don't mess anything up I've never posted on here before
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 04:22:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16825048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerkier/pseuds/rangerkier
Summary: Day 2 of Bardvent: Snowball fight!





	Snow and Time Both Fly

Symbol walked across the Strumlott grounds, snow crunching underboot and falling overhead. He was on his way to the stables; he wanted to ask Mitch what time he would finish up with his work so Symbol could try to have something warm waiting for him. Mitch was a better cook, so it was normally him that prepared dinner. But Symbol had a slow day and it was cold out. And while it wouldn’t be a surprise, Mitch would guess his plan the moment Symbol asked what time he’d be done, it would certainly be nice.

His stride was interrupted when something cold and wet shattered against the side of his face.

Sputtering against the snow now dripping down his face, Symbol stumbled to a stop. Once he managed to wipe his eyes clear, he looked in the general direction the snowball had to have come from, and caught sight of two of his students. His immediate thought was that Randy was sneaking around to try to flank him while Raz’ul and Yashee distracted him. However he could see that they both looked shocked, and somewhat apologetic, but not guilty. What was going on?

“Alright, which one of you was it?” he put on his best stern teacher voice and raised his voice a bit; they weren’t far enough away that he had to shout to be heard. 

Almost in sync, Raz’ul and Yashee raised their hands. It was a bit of a defensive gesture, showing that their hands were empty. It also let him notice that Raz’ul didn’t have any gloves or mitts on. Even with him being from a mountain, Symbol couldn’t understand how he seemed so immune to the cold. 

“It wasn’t us, Splash!” Raz’ul called back. He sounded sincere enough, but Symbol was starting to learn that Raz’ul’s lies could be pretty convincing at times.

“It’s Symbol! And who was it then, if not you?” he waved his arms in an all encompassing gesture at the empty grounds that surrounded them.

He was looking at Raz’ul as they spoke, but caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Something shooting out from behind Yashee before quickly ducking back into cover. Mere seconds later, another snowball hit him, this time in the shoulder. And this time, he was able to hear muffled laughter. Yashee and Raz’ul both started when they saw a second snowball fly out to hit him. Yashee looked worried, probably afraid of being guilty by association due to their smallest bard using her shadow as a hiding place.

“I know you’re back there, Randy!” even though it was unnecessary, he raised his voice a little more. “Don’t try to pin this on the other two!” As he called out, he crouched down, scooping up his own pile of snow, packing it into a ball. As he watched closely, he was able to see Raz’ul crack a smile. 

Now that he knew Randy was back there, Symbol was able to see slight movement behind Yashee. Thanks to this, he knew that Randy would appear in the same place when he jumped out again, rather than emerge from behind Raz’ul. And sure enough, he stepped out from behind Yashee’s legs, preparing to throw yet another snowball, but Symbol was ready this time. The second he saw movement, Symbol swung his arm in a throw, aiming just to the right of Yashee, and making sure it was low enough to actually hit the halfling. He’d feel pretty silly if it ended up flying right over his head. 

But his aim was true and it collided with Randy’s chest. Randy’s snowball was still in his hand, arm raised in preparation. But the blow staggered him, causing the snowball to fall and explode amongst the snow at his feet. Symbol couldn’t help but let out a laugh of his own.

Randy looked up, a competitive grin on his face. Then he started running, bending down to scoop up snow as he went. Realizing what his student was about to start, Symbol quickly started arming himself as well. “Gang up on Splash!” Randy shouted as he looped around, flanking Symbol like he’d originally expected. 

“No fair!” Symbol shouted back, dodging a snowball from Randy and instead getting hit with one that had to have been Yashee’s. The boys would have to put in too much effort to hit that hard. “What about teams?”

“We got teams!” Randy shouted, hardly noticing the snowball that grazed his arm. “It’s called teachers versus students!”

Symbol realized he wasn’t going to convince the three of them to a fair fight and took a page out of Randy’s proverbial book, running quickly to try to make himself a harder target. On the bright side, with three targets, he was able to score a lot of hits. On the downside, being the target of three people, he got hit a lot more than any of them did. 

He kept going, doing his best in this unfair fight. Keep moving, duck under Raz’ul’s shot, scoop up some snow and return fire. Run some more, try not to get hit by Yashee, those hurt, hit Randy and don’t let his theatrics garner any pity.

At one point he was running and could see Raz’ul’s throw, well placed to collide with him where he would be in a few seconds. He avoided the throw by sliding underneath and managed to keep himself from falling flat on his butt, pushing himself back to his feet instead. That maneuver earned him a cheer from Raz’ul, even though it was his snowball he had dodged. Symbol would never tell him that he had just slipped on a wet patch and got lucky. 

Moments later, Symbol stood, trying to catch his breath from his constant motion, facing off with Yashee across from him. Raz’ul was off to the side somewhere, and Randy behind Yashee, both of them so far not intervening with their showdown. Symbol could see the heavy rise and fall of Yashee’s shoulders and the huge toothy grin on her face. 

The grin was wiped away when a snowball to the back of her head caught her by surprise, causing her to take a half step forward. She put her hand up to the impact point and turned around. Both she and Symbol could see that the only possible culprit was Randy.

“Randy?” there was betrayal in her voice. “ I thought we were ganging up on Splash?”

“I’m changing the rules, it’s a free-for-all now!” Randy turned briefly to throw a snowball at Raz’ul before throwing the last one he held at Yashee, who easily sidestepped this one.

“You’ll pay for your betrayal!” Raz’ul shouted, adding a gruff edge to his voice to increase the drama. He still had a snowball prepared from before Yashee and Symbol’s stand off and threw it now toward Randy. It landed at his feet in a puff of snow, but distracted him enough that Yashee caught him in the side. 

“No, no!” Randy, took a few steps back. “I said free-for-all, not gang up on Randy!” he turned and took off again, apparently still full of energy despite the fierce snow war he had instigated. Symbol smirked, thankful for this shift, and packed another snowball.

After a few minutes of Yashee and Raz’ul chasing down Randy for his treachery, the fight devolved into the free-for-all Randy had been aiming for when he hit Yashee. Even though he was once again a target, it was still a step up from the start since the members of Chaos Sauce were all aiming at each other as well as him. Symbol fell into a similar pattern of ducking, dodging, collecting snow and throwing, though it was far less hectic for him this time. 

Eventually bad luck struck and his foot found another wet spot. This time, he didn’t manage an impressive sliding maneuver that let him easily push himself back to his feet. This time, he did fall flat on his butt. He heard Randy’s laughter ring out at his predicament.

Without too much concern, Symbol let himself fall backwards into the snow. Quiet laughter escaped his lips between his heavy breaths. For a moment he watched his misty exhalations rise, fading away as the surrounding air stole them with its chill. Then he closed his eyes and tried to catch his breath.

Lowering his guard proved to be a mistake when a heavy weight fell on his chest. He started, feet and head jerking into the air before landing back on the ground with a thump as he let out an “oof!” Whatever happened certainly didn’t help with catching his breath, as it now felt like the wind had been knocked out of him.

He opened his eyes and pushed himself back into a sitting position. Falling off his chest onto his legs and the ground around him, he could see a large, collapsed snowball. There had to be enough snow there for at least a snowman’s head. No wonder it had knocked the wind out of him, he thought as he wheezed for air. 

He was only vaguely aware of his surroundings as he tried once again to regain his breath. Once it wasn’t quite so ragged, he looked around and saw that the fight had come to a halt. Randy and Raz’ul stood some distance away, their arms still full of snowballs. It looked as though they had stopped bombarding each other to watch him in concern.

Yashee stood closer, clearly the culprit for the mound of snow that was now soaking through his pants. She looked startled and remorseful; she probably hadn’t expected to get more than a surprised reaction out of him. Her hands were slightly outstretched, like she thought she should help, but didn’t know how. 

Once his breathing had mostly calmed down, Symbol ventured to speak. “Yashee… In the future, maybe don’t… drop part of a snowman on someone’s chest,” he still had to pause in between words every now and then to take in air. “Most of us can’t handle that very well.”

“Sorry, Symbol!”

He could tell she felt awful, both from the tone in her voice and the fact that she actually used his name. “Don’t worry about it too much, you just knocked the wind out of me,” he smiled up at her, hoping to set her at ease. “Just keep it in mind for the future.”

“Definitely! Here, let me help you up,” she held her hand out for him. He accepted it and was all but lifted to his feet. 

“You okay, Doc?” Glancing around, Symbol saw that Raz’ul and Randy had approached, both now with empty arms. It seemed their snowball fight had been brought to end by that final, crushing blow from Yashee.

“‘Course,” he assured them with a grin. “It’ll take more than that to stop me.”

“What are you all doing out here?” a new voice interjected.

Inwardly, Symbol deflated a bit. Had it really been that long? He turned once again, to see Mitch approaching their group, wearing a bemused smile. Apparently his plan to make dinner was lost. 

“Snowball fight!” Randy answered gleefully. “We kicked Splash’s butt!”

“Yeah, not like it was three on one, or anything. I definitely had a fair shot.”

“But Raz’ul and I both only count for like. half a person. So really it was two on one.”

“I don’t think that’s how that works!”

Next to him, Mitch let out a laugh. “Hey,” he looked around at Chaos Sauce with a smile. “Why don’t you three come back with us? We can get a fire going and whip up some hot chocolate. It looks like you could all use it.”

“Yeah!” all of his students cheered, a few fists punching the air.

Mitch looked toward him next. “Is that okay with you, Symbol?”

He could hear the voices of Chaos Sauce again, all of them pleading in one way or another for his agreement. But, looking at Mitch’s smiling face, he barely heard them. “Of course, that sounds great.”

There was another round of cheers and the lot of them set off towards the promise of crackling logs and hot mugs to warm their hands.


End file.
